I Carry Your Heart
by Eritha
Summary: She thought it was just another teenage romance, but this breakup was not what she supposed it would be.
1. Prologue: I Carry Your Heart

**Prologue: I Carry Your Heart (I Carry It In My Heart)**

As he drew me closer to him, it was almost like the past – something to be talked about in the past tense, and not in the present. He held me so close to him I could smell his cologne – it was woody, stable; nothing fancy. Very Squall.

And he brought my lips to his and kissed me.

It was different from the ones that he gave me when we were, well, an item. It was not demure, it was not romantic. It was not like a knight sweeping his princess off her feet. It was passionate, selfish, consuming, uncaring and more for his own pleasure than to give me pleasure. This would have been normal if it had been any other man but Squall. He was probably drunk and sure enough, I could taste the alcohol on his lips.

Or perhaps this is the taste of guilt.

And this guilt overwhelmed me. Here I was, taking advantage of this man who was so drunk he probably had no idea he was doing right now. His girlfriend was probably waiting for him somewhere, maybe in his apartment or something but here he was getting wasted and I was kissing this man. And I loved every single moment of it.

Somehow I managed, with a combination of tugging and pushing, to get him into a taxi and back to my apartments, stumble across the lobby (while catching the eye of the guard who didn't look very pleased) and take the lift up to my apartment.

When we reached my room (Somehow, I don't know how. Don't ask me) things started getting hot in there. I knew drunken sex was the last thing both of use needed, but I could not resist the ways he touched me. It was unlike Irvine's rough and somewhat animalistic motions, but rather gentle and controlled. It was like the stage directions an actor had, perfected by performing those directions over and over again, until the audience could not tell if he was really the character, or if he was merely an actor playing that part. It was what sex with Squall felt like. He was another woman's lover, and yet here he was playing the part of _my_ lover and the audience (which happened to be me) believed him. Perhaps it was an unconscious act on his part - the many times that we've done it, so many that he could not forget how I wanted it to be, that it had become almost like a reflex to him. And a part of me wanted this playacting to continue.

I wanted everything to go back to the way it used to be.

I wanted someone to heal the scars.

I wanted someone to touch me, the way he did.

I wanted someone to love me.

So I let him continue.

And that was when my heart broke, and so his heart did too, because I carried his heart in mine.

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A/N: So there you have it, the prologue.  
This story is a little out of the blue, I admit. It's something different from anything I've ever tackled cause firstly it's in the Final Fantasy 8 world and I usually write for 7 and I've never explicitly discussed intercourse in any of my previous stories. I think the themes are also a little darker here than in my previous fics so it's a whole new ball game for me.

Read and review people. The rest of the chapters will be longer, I promise.

P.S I've fixed the typos that I had last night and I remind myself never to write another story at 11pm again, especially after a long day at school


	2. Burns

**Disclaimer: I forgot this in the last chapter, but none of the character in this work of fiction belong to me. I only own the plot.**

**Warning: Depiction of self-harm, possibly triggering**

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_Chapter One – Burns_

"_Walk away."_

"_What?"_

"_I said, Walk away."_

"_Why?"_

_"Just because."_

_I squeezed his hand and it was cold like ice._

"_Why do I have to walk away?"_

"_Because I don't want to do this anymore."_

_And that was when my heart broke for the first time._

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You know how sometimes when you wake up after a night of drinking, you feel like you were run over by a train? Yep, I felt exactly that way right now. I randomly grabbed an oversized shirt from my drawers and I went out of my bedroom, and I begin to feel much worse than before_._ Why? Well, there were threereasons. Firstly, I became perfectly aware of what had happened last night. Secondly, because **he** was sitting on my couch. Thirdly, because I was realised I was wearing one of the shirts he had left behind after our "nights" in the past.

And he smoking a cigarette. _A fucking _cigarette.

And I thought to myself "Jesus, you've screwed over big time, Squall...big time."

_I watched as he pushed the upperclassman's offer of a lit cigarette away from him. The upperclassman held the cigarette to his mouth and took a long drag from it, reveling in it's taste and aroma._

"_Geez Squall, why'd you have to be so fucking perfect. 'fraid they won't let you in if they find out you smoke?"_

_Later, I found out why he doesn't smoke. In his own words, it's cause his father smokes, and his father is a loser, so if he smokes it'll make him a loser like his father._

_Leaning in and kissing him somewhat playfully on his cheek, I told him, "You don't have to be so perfect, you know Squall? Everyone has their own faults." He looked into my eyes and said "I have to be perfect for you."_

He took a long drag from his cigarette, just like we had watched the upperclassman do, and the air filled with the cloying smell of smoke, bittersweet.

"Um, Squall." He turned and stared at me like I was a monster with five eyes and seven limbs.

"What do you want?"

I flinched at his hostility, for it was like a stab with a blunt knife, straight into my heart. What happened to the fairytale ending I had imagined? Where was the "I'm sorry, Rinoa, can we go back to what we were then?

"Don't assume that just because we had sex, you mean something to me, because when you assume, you make an ass out of you and me."

Oh my god, was this Squall I was hearing?

"I..."

"I just wanted to fuck with your feelings. Get it?_ Fuck_ with your feelings. Haha." He let out some cold laughter, and in the silence they reverberated, jarring like a poorly sung note by an amateur soprano . Oh God, Squall, what had happened to you. You hated lame puns back then.

Oh right, that was "_back then_". I reminded myself that I didn't know him now. He could have three wives, seven children and a million gil for all I knew. Okay, I knew about the million gil part, but you get the idea.

And somehow his words stung me, and I felt like I was back to being a child who believed all the lies adults ever told me, like the tale of Santa Claus, and how I felt when I found out Santa Claus wasn't real and my parents were just fibbing to me half the time. There was this annoyance I felt at myself, for having allowed someone to deceive me again, for allowing myself to believe him, and that I wanted it all to stop.

"Well, fuck you for thinking that way." I watched as my words wiped the stupid grin off his face. Heh. "I was just fucking with you too." He let out a scathing "hmph", smirked, and he held out the cigarette. "Prove it."

"Why should I?"

"Because if you're really fucking with me, you would smoke with complete disregard with reference to my stance on cigarettes in the past."

He knew it. He had seen me look at him smoke with disbelief. He knew that I was thinking about what he had said in the past. He could still read me like a book.

I took the lit cigarette from his hand, but I didn't do what he wanted me to do this time. I pulled up my sleeve, allowing him to see the scars on my arm, like ladders descending straight to hell. Looking into his eyes, I pressed the cigarette to my arm. It burned, but hell, it felt good. Not expecting that I would take him up on his dare, he snatched the cigarette from my fingers. "You're a crazy bitch, you know that? "

God knows I did it only to prove that I loved him as much as he loved me, which was "Not at all", or at least, to convince myself of that fact that I loved him no longer.

But in truth, when I did it, I had my fingers crossed behind my back the whole time.

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A/N: Whew, I'm glad that was done. This was one helluva chapter to write. So I'm done with mids and all (Hehe, pretty pleased with my results) I'm sorry if people don't like the idea of Rinoa self-harming, or Squall smoking. Personally, I don't advocate self-harm, use of tobacco, or some of the other themes that might be presented in this work of fiction, but the truth is that these things happen. They could happen to anyone. Oh yes, and the Past is in italics, while the present is in normal font. So I hope this doesn't confuse you guys.

R&R!


	3. One Flesh

**Six months ago**

We lay on the bed, hands touching, fingers interlocked.

The air is still, expectant. Yet, we did not speak; we did not need words to express our feelings. Every touch is like a confession – one of love and passion; it could not be conveyed through words alone.

The morning light shines in through floor to ceiling window of my apartment, bathing the room in a soft glow. We had angled our heads to face each other, and I watch him as though he is the most perfect thing in the world (Not that he wasn't).

The musky aroma of our passionate lovemaking was still in the warm air. He opens his arms to receive me when I move towards him, and I snuggle against him. With my finger, I playfully trace the contours of his chest and abs (Oh look, six packs).

In his embrace, I can feel the slow up and down movement of his chest, and he breathes a contented sigh as we both lay, back to being high school sweethearts, like we didn't have a care in the world.

But a phone rings and the noise breaks the lull that had us ensnared in its charms. It's Squall's phone and we both know it's from the police academy from the unique ringtone I had assigned it while playing with his phone a few weeks ago. It's like a police siren, and it gets steadily louder the longer you take to answer the call. Squall jumps out of bed, apologetically mouthing "sorry" for bumping my head as he moves from the bed to the hall to pick up the phone call. I look a little regretfully at him as he leaves the room, leaving me alone in the sheets.

Truth is, I get a little annoyed (understatement) whenever the police academy calls because it usually means that he has to leave for some raid or mission, but I understand that this is really important to Squall. His childhood dream was to be a cop, and despite growing up in a single parent family (his mother died when he was young) in a bad part of town, he kept his nose clean and worked odd jobs while he studied. They used to call him Straight-laced Squall in high school because of how he was always following the rules and studying and getting top grades. He eventually got into the police academy with a scholarship and he's well on his way to fulfilling his dream.

I, on the other hand, was constantly getting booked for late-coming in high school and was a familiar face in the detention classes. I don't really have any goals in life, probably because I don't have to worry about expenses in anyway (why would I have to when my father is an army general in Galbadia?). In short, I'm the total opposite of him, but our relationship works because we keep each other in check. I keep him from working too hard and he keeps me from being too frivolous. It's a win-win situation for the both of us.

And did I mention how we're crazily in love with each other?

Of course, I'm not saying that our relationship is perfect. We have our ups and downs. Truth be told, I was expecting this relationship to be another teenage romance. You know how they all are, easy come, easy go.

But this is the longest relationship I've been in (two years now), and I secretly am hoping in my heart of hearts that this is something more.

Before I know it, Squall is back and now he's frantically putting his clothes. "Gotta run", he says, "we've got leads on a huge drug ring in Timber and they're organizing a raid to get them before they get away again".

"You'll come back soon right?"

"I don't know how long the operation will take."

After putting on his socks he kisses me on cheek, "Love you," he says, and he leaves.

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A/N: Yeah, this is a bit of a filler chapter. But I promise more good stuff.


End file.
